I’m kind of surprised I have a finished hat this month, I left it to the last minute to cast on and it wasn’t truly finished until April 1 ( I left it till then to make the pom pom).The Hat is the “Conversationalist” hat by The Plucky Knitter designs – I made the small size. I think this one will be a gift for my niece Cate (she’ll be eight this month!) I used Plucky Knitter Snug worsted for this, in the colourways Melba, Cake Plate and Twill. I learned a new technique, the tubular cast on for this hat.

My other finish was a pair of socks – my Commuter rainbow socks made using Susan B Anderson’s how I make my socks recipe (a couple of changes this time: I used a two by two rib and used a contrast yarn for the heal and toes). Yarn for the socks is Lollipop Yarn Gripes in the Rainbow Connection Colourway and Cascade Heritage Solids in the Italian Plum Colourway. I was amazingly lucky sometime last year and managed to bag some Lollipop during one of her updates. These have to be the best fitting socks I have made for myself. I LOVE them.

March was my birthday month so I treated myself to a new (somewhat self indulgent) cast on, I cast on Hunter Hammersen’s Sybaritic Socks using some Plucky Knitter Feet yarn from the Classics Club – this one is Taffeta Darling inspired by the film, Young Frankenstein. I’m loving working on these socks, I don’t think I’ve done them absolutely perfectly (the centred double decreases don’t quite look right to my eye) but I love them anyway. These are NOT a commute sock! When I say self indulgent, I’m thinking back to when I set my goals for myself this year – my intention was not to cast on new projects other than hats for gifts and socks (and for the socks, I was definitely expecting more simple socks to be the flavour of the year).

My other March cast on was a replacement commuter sock – these new ones are using “Reinebeck Sweater Weather” Trusty sock yarn by Nomadic yarns (this colourway is not available in her shop right now, but I’m very partial to her Harry Potter colourways – McGonagall, Sirius and numerous non-HP related ones, reminding myself of my goals and adding them to the wishlist!)

One of my birthday gifts was the Koko Bean Hat pattern from my lovely Tasmanian friend, Jeannie-maree. I’ve cast it on as my April hat with Plucky Knitter Primo Aran Babysitting Blues (from my Classics Subscription last year) and am working it on some double pointed needles (I’d really prefer to magic loop this but I couldn’t find a suitable circular needle). A fun knit so far…

In other news, we spent Easter visiting my in-laws down in Mount Barker (4 hour drive south of us in Perth) – we had a lovely time catching up with them. It was cold and wet and I delighted in wearing my handmade socks whilst we were there.

Dr K was very generous with my 42nd birthday gifts: a pile of books, a lego set, a beautiful box of watercolour pencils and a set of monogrammed towels (a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy reference – I’d joked the year he turned 42, that a set of towels would be a perfect 42nd birthday gift and he remembered!). So spoilt. Note: No yarn. Oh well, I do have plenty for my needs, really.

TL/DR: Another good month, goal wise! A pair of socks off the needles and another hat in the gift pile. I also made progress on a languishing WIP (and resisted casting on several other things). Silly antics at the end.

The obligatory silly selfie in a newly finished hat.

So, first up – my finished hat. This is the Sisters Hat by The Plucky Knitter, yarn is three shades of Plucky Knitter Primo Fingering: Wrought Iron, Heirloom and Beanpole. These were part of a gradient set so of course, work wonderfully together for this hat. The finished hat got a lot of love and I have enough for another go around with this hat (maybe later this year, right now I crave the new!)

Another go trying to show how the colours work together. I really should talk Dr K into being my hat model.

The other notable finish this month was a pair of socks. Plain vanilla again, these were made using Susan B Anderson’s How I make my socks (I really like this recipe!)

Finished Socks!

The yarn is Simply Socks Yarn Co. Poste Yarn in the Colourway Holiday in FL. This sock yarn is Corriedale wool and nylon and feels very “wooly”. It did soften a bit on washing and I think the finished socks are fabulous. I am rather looking forward to them peaking out the top of my Dr Martens when the weather starts to cool down. They are not exact matches for each other, but I am happy enough with these as they are.

Shawl progress: Feb 2016

Jan 2016

And here’s the progress I’ve made on my Ropedance Shawl by Melanie Berg (Marilynd). Two more repeats of the white “knots” and I get to change to a different “main colour” – getting a bit tired of the dark grey. (I didn’t know that could happen! I love my greys!) Yarn on this project is Woolfolk Tynd in the colours that Melanie used on the model.

As I finished my Holiday socks, I cast on some yarn I have been hording for a little while… some of the completely fabulous Lollipop Yarn in the colourway: “The Rainbow Connection” – I keep humming the song as I knit – hopefully that will wear off when they are my commuter socks (they haven’t been on the bus with me yet). Here’s the start …

New socks on the needles – Lollipop Yarn: Gripes “Rainbow Connection”

I am just loving how this is knitting up. The colours are gorgeous. The yarn is a quite a bit softer than the Poste. I honestly can’t gush enough about this project – it gives me so much joy!

Oh, and you might have noticed, I’m working this project on some dpns. I had an incident with my favourite long circular hiya hiya needle for socks – I found bite marks on both of the needle ends. One of the cats has had a little chew on them! That incorrigible pair!

Knitpicks had a sale and I managed to pick up the Knitters Curiosity Cabinet books by Hunter Hammersen (I just love her books and designs) for a really good price. It’s been incredibly difficult not casting on one of the lovely sock designs – my current major crush is on the Chrysanthemum Frutescens Socks which is featured on the cover of book 1. These would not be commuter socks – some concentration is required! I have some Plucky yarn new to the stash that I think will be lovely for them (the recent scum club colour way in the feet base – no spoilers here).

In other news, my sister has been competing in the national open mike comedy competition for amateurs, Raw Comedy. Lucy hadn’t done any comedy performance till the first heat. She has now won two WA heats and will be in the WA final on the 5th of March – I’m so proud of her for having a shot at this. She is completely awesome and I love her.

And I fell over. I blame my harem trousers. They are just so easy to get caught up in . I’m not sure if I can blame them this time, one moment I was trying to stand up from my armchair in my study, the next I was crashing down on to the floor, breaking my fall on a wicker basket full of yarn. I don’t really know what happened. I have a lovely bruise on my knee as a keepsake. Just in case it wasn’t my trousers, I have removed the ottoman from my study, which I might have tripped over… now my study is full of the bags of yarn that were concealed within.

After the good ship Cathy capsized, the ottoman was removed and yarn ruled the study once more.

Ah well, the trousers are now on my “might be dangerous if worn” list. Once upon a time that list was for the sexy clothes. Now in my forties, it’s just for things that might kill me (funny, my platform sandals haven’t made it onto the list yet, probably ’cause I’m already afraid of them).

A trip to Ikea to add another bookcase to the cramped study is on my list – just to get the yarn off the floor. It’s bagged but I can’t help but worry.

Love them! And I like to think I understand kitchener stitch now… (preparing for crushing disappointment in 3…2..)

Next, using a free pattern and scrap yarn from my stash I knit 13 little gift hats for wine bottles, flavored oils and in one case bubble bath. These became part of my commuter knitting for December. My project page on Ravelry for these can be viewed here.

Most of my “How ’bout a night cap?” finishes under the tree.

They were a quick knit – they took me at most, an hour each to knit up. I used a clover pompom maker for these pompoms (my most successful pompoms ever). Response to these little tokens was universally lovely. Would you believe I blocked each one? Strikes me as strangely obsessive!

Not having any socks or mitts on the needles got too much, so I cast on some Scurry socks with some Stray Cat sock yarn “Luigi” and then frogged them (yarn and pattern not such a great match). I’m now trying Susan B Anderson’s How I make my socks recipe (turns out I prefer magic loop or five needles over Susan’s four dpn method) with the same yarn. Here’s sock number one in progress.

At work today we are having a cake decorating contest – here’s my less than fabulous (and really quite expensive) entry – “Trainwreck”.

I was joking to Dr K. on the bus this morning that my employer is trying to expose other marketable skills in our workforce. Still, it turns out that cake decorating will not be my golden ticket out of librarianship (perhaps that is for the best.)

Knitting wise, it’s all about The Plucky Knitter yarn this month – it’s Plucktober – more on that in another post soon.

Hello all,
Since we last communed I entered my study and trashed it looking for the WIP of Sampler Mystery II by Chatelaine Designs**. My last photo of it before it went into the Long Term WIP pile was archived here. Since it is time for a WIPocalypse check-in post I’ve taken some progress photos to share today. As you can see, some progress has been made… though honestly, the blue squiggly inner border was already 3/4 complete when I restarted work.

Chatelaine: Sampler Mystery II (in all its unironed glory)

This is a photo of the whole thing. It’s actually pretty big and I found it difficult to get a nice picture. It may have been easier if I had got the iron out (sometimes I just can’t do it, sorry).

The flowers that bloomed over the weekend.

And here is a detail shot of the flowers I planted in stitches over the weekend. The gold border is very boring to stitch and I haven’t got anything sufficiently mindless to watch whilst stitching it at the moment. But, wait! Mythbusters is on tonight and I can work on it whilst Joel is watching. Confession: I’m not all that into it, but will happily stitch whilst it’s on. Please don’t ask about the physics principles demonstrated tonight because I was probably concentrating on threading my needle at the crucial moment (always the way and those metallic threads can be buggers to thread properly).

We had a minor domestic disaster this weekend. This Christmas I bought a rather expensive but simply amazing smelling candle by Diptyque (it was a special edition Christmas candle scented like a pine tree). This particular candle has been rather a household chore as well as a pleasure to smell because unfortunately I dropped it on our tiled floor just after Christmas – the clean up after this incident was rather traumatizing (I also got the wax on my favourite silk skirt) but we got through it (the skirt survived!!)

Loving this candle so much I actually ordered a second one for next year which I have packed away safely. But what to do with the other, broken one? It was suggested by a family member who will not be outed on this blog that it would be ok to light it (but not display the poor shattered remains). So, the other night, I was feeling the love and pulled the candle out and lit it before we retired to bed. Just as I was drifting off to sleep I pulled myself out of the bed and went over to blow it out to be greeted by the sight below… arrrrgh.

A Minor Disaster Domesticus

And of course there was a puddle of wax on the carpet by the dresser. I’ve scraped off all the wax from our dresser which thankfully did not leave any marks in the wood and did the same for the carpet. The bedroom has a lovely scent of pine about it at the moment!! I still have to lift the wax out of the carpet with the iron and some paper towels but that will happen another day (hey, if I’m not ironing WIPs – I’m not ironing the carpet!!)

Well, another rather wordy update from me. Sorry about that. It does kind of help to share the domestic disasters (I get to see the funny side of them this way).